War Thunder

▶️F-14D Super Tomcat: Never Got Its Shot The F-14 Tomcat, an American carrier-based fighter, was rightly considered one of the most advanced aircraft of the Cold War. Even its early variants boasted a powerful radar and long-range Phoenix missiles. At high speeds, the Tomcat’s engines retained tremendous thrust, and combined with its variable-sweep wing, this gave the aircraft outstanding flight performance by the standards of carrier aviation.

🐱Real M18 cat crew

▶️L-39ZA/ART: The Albatros’ New Groove The Albatros combat trainer is already familiar to War Thunder players thanks to its premium Czech version. But the summer update adds another modification: the Thai L-39ZA/ART, available to research in the Japanese tech tree. At first glance, it barely differs from the basic L-39. But in reality, the Thai modernization received several very welcome upgrades that make it noticeably more interesting to play.

😄Thunder Show: SKY STRONGHOLD Welcome to Thunder Show and the most mesmerizing moments of the past week!

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🔫Nuclear Escalation Returns! After players tested Nuclear Escalation on the Heavy Cavalry dev server, we’re ready to launch the mode on the main servers again!

📆When: From June 26th (12:00 GMT) until July 1st (11:00 GMT).

Nuclear Escalation will run in the same format as it did on the dev server. Check out the changes since April below! We’ve refined and improved the large-scale nuclear conflict that you experienced back in April and made numerous changes, but the main ones include:

▪️Players can now fly their own aircraft from any nation ▪️An AI-controlled fleet has been added to the mission ▪️The overall front line has been increased

There’s also changes to game mechanics, various tweaks, improvements and new features. Let’s take a look at them below! ⚡️The Tension is Mounting!

All in-game nations can now participate in this version of Nuclear Escalation! Battle Ratings now range from 13.0 to 14.7, and the matchmaking system utilizes Battle Rating brackets within this range as needed, ensuring balanced encounters in every battle. We’ve also expanded the front line: the line of contact has been extended to the mountains, increasing the map’s tactical depth. Carrier strike groups, supported by missile ships, have been added to control the coastal zone. More modern AI-controlled ground vehicles have been introduced for higher-rank battles in the mode as well.

🆕New Opportunities

We’ve made some major changes to the general event mechanics. The escalation system has been reworked, removing the need for strategic bombers with megaton bombs. Nuclear strikes will now be carried out with bombs of 5 and 30 kiloton yields, carried by the same aircraft that carry nuclear bombs in Ground Battles, depending on the Battle Rating bracket. The behemoths from the April event, the B-52H and Tu-95M bombers, may return as a separate Nuclear Escalation event in the future. The match completion conditions have also changed. The main base is now easier to destroy, but destroying it no longer grants instant victory. Victory is now determined by the total number of points earned for destroying any target: enemy aircraft, AI-controlled vehicles, and airfields. In addition, the marker system has been improved when viewing from an aircraft. Markers for ground and surface targets are now displayed depending on the angular size of the target, meaning that markers for buildings are visible 3-5 times further than markers for ground vehicles. A new respawn mechanic has been introduced. Aircraft are now temporarily locked from respawing on the airfields from which they departed from. Respawning with the same aircraft from other airfields is possible immediately. This change is intended to prevent players from instantly returning to combat in the same position and encourage more cautious, tactical behavior. And finally, the minimap now features tooltips for respawn bases. Hovering over them provides information about the airfield’s status. This new feature simplifies navigation and improves situational awareness for the team. The fire control system for air defense vehicles has undergone significant changes here too. Target filters have been implemented, meaning that air defense systems will now engage guided missiles (especially air-to-air missiles and surface-to-air missiles) significantly less frequently. This will only occur if there are no aircraft in the firing range and the air defense system considers the missile an immediate threat.

The event is already live, so buckle up and give ‘em hell!

🇬🇧A Decal Trophy for British Armed Forces Day! The first Victoria Cross ceremony took place on June 26th 1857. In 2009, the last Saturday in June was designated British Armed Forces Day. The British Army distinguished itself most prominently during the Second World War, when following the surrender of France, Britain and the Commonwealth remained Germany’s only adversaries for a full year. After the Second World War, Britain primarily fought as part of coalition forces, but the Falklands War vividly demonstrated its military effectiveness. 🎁Open the “British Armed Forces Day” trophy! When: From June 26th (11:00 GMT) until June 29th (11:00 GMT) Task: Earn 3,000 mission points in battles where you used British vehicles at rank III or higher to receive the “British Armed Forces Day” trophy! Inside this trophy, you’ll receive one of three decals The “British Armed Forces Day” decal is located in the “Holidays” vehicle customization section. The “UK Ministry of Defence Emblem” and “UK Armed Forces Day 2025” decals are located in the “Great Britain → Tanks” vehicle customization section. If you already have all three decals, you’ll receive a trophy containing one of the following items:

▪️20-50% Research Point booster for 3-10 battles ▪️20-50% Silver Lion booster for 3-10 battles ▪️3-5 universal backups ▪️1 day of Premium account

Please note: After finishing the task, you need to collect the reward manually.

▶️New Features for Aircraft The Heavy Cavalry update has brought plenty of new tools for high-rank aviation. Today we’ll talk about man-in-the-loop guidance and the new functionality for aircraft target points.

📕Duplicate Vehicles: Why We Add Them Hey everyone! Today we’d like to come to you with our perspective on duplicate vehicles. We know this post is fairly long but we’d rather say too much than too little, as we know this has become an important topic for many players. Duplicate vehicles are vehicles that are added to research trees to help bolster lineups and fill large gaps in a particular nation. An example of this is the inclusion of Indonesia in the Japanese tree, or Hungary in the Italian tree. There are two main reasons for these additions. The first reason is that a real life country may have a set of interesting vehicles but not enough to form their own independent research tree. The second, and primary reason, is to help improve lineups in a particular nation. Here, we’re killing “two birds with one stone”, as a nation that may have not otherwise made it into the game can be added, while helping to improve an already existing tree. Our aim with these sorts of additions are a means to be as positive as possible; we want a nation to be enjoyable to play with full, varied lineups and fun vehicles. Below we will explain our decision process for Premium vehicles and Researchable vehicles that are “clones” and explain why we go about adding them. ➡️LEARN MORE

🔥🔥🔥The Summer Sale in the Gaijin Store! Whatever the weather and whatever the time of year, the Gaijin store delights you with new discounts and offers. Check out what we have to offer you at great prices this hot summer!

📆When: From June 25th (11:00 GMT) until July 2nd (11:00 GMT), get standalone packs with a 50% discount!

🛍F/A-18C Hornet (Swiss) Pack - 50% 🛍F-2A ADTW Pack - 50% 🛍T58 Pack - 50% 🛍Leopard 2 (OTCo) Pack - 50% 🛍BMPT-72 "Terminator-2" Pack -50% 🛍Su-30MKK (China) Pack -50% ➡️And over 30 more offers with a 50% discount!

❗️Note! The following packs will be removed from sale on all platforms: ▪️PzH 2000 Pack ▪️JH-7A Prototype Pack ▪️Type 74 Red Star Pack Note! The offer is available to PC users only.

💥Legendary Ricochet

🐴🐴🐴Meet the “Heavy Cavalry” Major Update! The Heavy Cavalry major update brings a variety of vehicles for all nations, from the Welkin and IA.58A Pucara to the new Abrams variants and USS North Carolina! For ground locations, we’ve improved the visuals of Ash River and Winter Ardennes, all while retaining their familiar layouts. Rewards for aircraft crashing near your vicinity without taking damage, new damage models and MFD screens, man-in-the-loop, and aiming points for salvo firing are some of the features that we’ve worked on in this update to help improve several quality of life aspects of the game. 🆕Be sure to check out the changelog to see all the improvements, vehicles and other features that we’ve included in this major update.

❗️Please note that this update requires more data to be downloaded than usual. About 20 GB more for the standard client and 35 GB more for clients with ultra-high quality for ground vehicle textures. This is because we have changed the compression format of all ground vehicle textures, helping to improve their quality without virtually any increase in the total size of the textures.

❗️Planned Technical Works on 24.06.2026 Hey everyone, on June 24th from 08:00 GMT, the War Thunder game servers may be unavailable due to the release of the Heavy Cavalry major update!

‼️Please note that this update requires more data to be downloaded than usual. About 20 GB more for the standard client and 35 GB more for clients with ultra-high quality for ground vehicle textures. This is because we have changed the compression format of all ground vehicle textures, helping to improve their quality without virtually any increase in the total size of the textures.

So that players with login streaks don’t miss out, the resetting of the daily login counter after not logging in for some time has been been temporarily disabled. The counter will resume operating under normal rules after June 26th at 08:00 GMT. Be sure to catch up on what content is coming in this update by looking at our dev blogs while you wait for your game to download. The major update announcement and full major changelog will be published when the update is released and ready to play. Thank you for your understanding.

🚀Flight Model and Missile Autopilot Improvements We’re constantly refining many vehicle and weapon parameters, and the Heavy Cavalry major update is no exception. While tuning missile flight models to better match their real-world counterparts, we’ve introduced new missile mechanics, and we’re excited to share them with you! 💨The Effect of Pressure on Rocket Engine Thrust 🚀AIM-54 🚀Missile Air-breathing Engine Improvements ⚙️Autopilot Engine Activation 🔼Altitude Hold

❗️As a reminder, helicopter ammunition will not have man-in-the-loop capabilities in this update. We plan to add it in the next major update once most nations have helicopters with suitable armament.

❓Our Future Plans This update will introduce the technical ability to change lift coefficient based on Mach number. It increases at subsonic speeds, drops sharply at transonic speeds, and gradually decreases at supersonic speeds. The first missiles to be simulated with this physics feature will be the AIM-7 and R-27 series missiles. We’re currently working on refining their flight models to bring their drag, thrust, and maneuverability data closer to real-world counterparts, and plan to release these changes after the Heavy Cavalry major update. Mechanics for changing lift coefficient based on speed will be added to all missiles in the game in the future, and we will keep updating the flight models of various bombs and missiles based on your reports and emerging data, while simultaneously implementing various new mechanics for older missiles. That’s all for today! The Heavy Cavalry major update is coming soon, and you’ll be able to try out the updated missiles for yourself.

▶️Т-90: The Ever Evolving MBT The Russian T-90 is one of the best examples of iterative tank design done right. The story starts in the mid-1980s, with a push to modernize the T-72. The army needed to refresh its fleet and had a few ways to go about it: commit to an entirely new main battle tank, develop something new on existing foundations, or simply upgrade what was already in service.

🌴Leopard 2RI: In the Indonesian Jungle Japan is getting an Indonesian Leopard 2RI with additional armor and a high-end round! 🇮🇩🇯🇵Leopard 2RI: An MBT for Japan at Rank VIII At a glance:

▪️Add-on armor package ▪️DM53 APFSDS ▪️High mobility

👋Introducing the Leopard 2RI! Today we’re taking a look at a main new addition to the Japanese Ground Forces tree in the Heavy Cavalry major update. Meet the Leopard 2RI, featuring additional armor and high-end ammunition, all while retaining good mobility and a modern fire control system. Let’s see what it’s all about! 🔼You can greatly speed up the research of the Leopard 2RI with these packs:

🔹Type 90B "Fuji" Pack 🔹Senrai Maidens: Usagi

▶️The Battle of 73 Easting: The Moment Tank Warfare Changed The Battle of 73 Easting, fought on the 26th of February, 1991, during the Gulf War, is often called the last great tank battle of the 20th century. It was there that next-generation technology collided with outdated ideas about warfare, and in conditions that seemed almost unsuitable for modern combat.

▶️Hummel: A Bumblebee with a Sledgehammer We continue exploring the summer additions. Today it’s time for a long-awaited World War II SPG: the German Hummel, which means “bumblebee.” Let’s see how hard this one can sting.

🏰Himmel the SPG

🧑‍🔬Regarding the Hull Armor of the M1A2 SEP V3 Hey everyone, today we’ll be going into detail on the hull protection of the new Abrams models, armed with scales, a ruler, and all the available data we have. We’ll start with clarifying the data we used to create the version of the tank we have in game. We know the hull armor of the Abrams is a topic of heated debate, so we want to be as thorough as possible. Very briefly, our conclusion is that there is evidence to suggest that changes were made to the frontal armor of the hull, so let’s get started! 🛡The Hull Front: Projects, Myths, and Facts ⚖️On the Scales 🛞Front Torsion Bars 🤩Weight Budget ❗️Conclusion

There is no confirmed data on the specific hull armor properties of the M1A2 SEP V3, the only thing that’s provable is that some modification was made to the armor array in the frontal hull. The hull armor of the SEP V3 will be strengthened in game, in relation to the only reasonable assumption we’re able to make based on the known change in weight. In the game, the tank’s hull will be better protected when compared to previous variants of the Abrams. This improvement is in line with what the engineers would be able to achieve without redesigning the entire vehicle from scratch. In addition, and perhaps more importantly, we are currently working on the hull and turret armor of all tanks in the Abrams family. Part of this work includes converting sections of the armor to the volumetric model, which will improve survivability universally. This improves protection around the upper hull area and the turret ring, which we consider to be more impactful in game than the lower plate itself.